A collaborative project based in Germany is aiming to make lithium-ion batteries cheaper by making the formation process more efficient and innovative at the industrial-scale.
Seven organisations from academia, the automotive sector and the battery industry are working on the three-year project to study the formation process in detail.
Currently around a third of battery production costs are taken up with the formation process— the final manufacturing step where the initial charge is applied to the battery.
The collaborative project, ‘EffiForm – Efficient formation strategies for increased durability, reliability and safety as well as cost reduction in the production of lithium-ion cells/batteries’, aims to address this issue.
The partnership includes Thyssenkrupp System Engineering, VARTA MicrobatteryGmbH, BMW Group, Scienlab electronic systems GmbH, Fraunhofer IKTS, the Technical University of Munich and the MEET battery research center of Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster to study the formation process in detail.
A spokesman for the project said: “The aim is to optimise the material, process and systems technologies used in the initial charging (formation) of lithium-ion cells for industrial applications.
“This will be a key step in translating the project findings into cutting-edge formation systems for the mass production of lithium-ion cells.
“In the future this will reduce the production costs of lithium-ion battery systems and support the spread of e-mobility. Lower costs could also make lithium-ion technology attractive for other applications, such as home storage systems.”
The ‘EffiForm’ project is being funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of its program ‘Battery 2020 – battery materials for future electro-mobile and stationary applications’.
